Peter Thiel could invest $150M in Airbnb -- WSJ
An early Facebook investor and a co-founder of PayPal, Thiel would join Andreessen Horowitz and Sequoia Capital in giving Airbnb a $2.5 billion valuation, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Investor and PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel is in talks with Airbnb about putting $150 million into the online room- and house-rental service, The Wall Street Journal reported today.
According to the Journal (subscription required), Thiel's Founders Fund and current Airbnb investors Andreessen Horowiz and Sequoia Capital are all expected to participate in the round, which would give Airbnb a valuation of about $2.5 billion.
"The talks represent a new milestone for Airbnb, a high-profile startup and one of the young technology companies that investors widely considered [to be] on deck to go public in the next year or so," the Journal wrote. Airbnb is a popular service that helps people rent out their extra rooms or even their entire homes for short periods.
Airbnb, founded in 2008, last year raised a $112 million B round and to date has brought in $120 million in venture funding. It has largely recovered from a public relations disaster in which someone renting a San Francisco flat through the service trashed the place. Subsequently, Airbnb announced it would begin offering owners up to $1 million in insurance against potential damage by renters.
Thiel was one of the earliest investors in Facebook and is considered one of Silicon Valley's most astute VCs.